Plan to raise air squadron strength in IAF to 42 within a year: Marshal

The Indian Air Force has a depleted strength of 33 Air Squadrons but it is likely to be expanded to 42 after a year or so, according to Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Training Command, Air Marshal SRK Nair.

He told reporters here that the depletion had been there for a while but now efforts were on to increase it to 42 air squadrons.

The IAF’s decline in squadron strength was criticised by a Parliament standing Committee recently. A report has said that India required 42 air squadrons to counter a two-front collusive threat. The Parliamentary panel has found that the gap between retirement of fighter aircraft after completion of their total shelf life far exceeded the rate of replacements.

IAF has started inducting Sukhoi-30s and the squadron is operational from Thanjavur airbase.

Meanwhile, efforts are on to induct Apache helicopters from United States and the process would begin from July 2019 and end by March 2020. Apache has been in service since 1984 in United States and the version that India is purchasing is the latest Block-III configuration that the US first got in 2011.

A total of 22 choppers are being bought for $ 1.4 billion.

 

 
Source:- New Indian Express

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